He may have been a young man and low on the totem pole. The UAW is not going to lay off an old duffer to keep a strong young man on the job. High gas prices and very few decent economy cars from GM was probably the reason. It is just easiest to blame it on Reagan. Though no mention of the Democrat controlled Congress at the time. Yet now it is not Obama it is the Tea party GOPers in the House that are keeping the economy screwed up. Funny how that works.
>Yet now it is not Obama it is the Tea party GOPers in the House that are keeping the economy screwed up. Funny how that works.
That's just the hypocrisy from that group that is perpetually there.
As for the layoffs, there was lots of excess plant capacity in many lines as the slowdowns in autosales required factories building certain sizes and types of cars be shut down or slowed down. That is probably the layoff trend observed.
Wisconsin public school teacher has filed an amicus curiae brief in state court supporting Governor Walker's public sector union reform bill. The recently-enacted legislation ensures that most Wisconsin public employees do not have to join or pay dues to a union as a condition of employment and bans automatic union dues deductions from public employees' paychecks.
Eli Grajkowski, a veteran Wisconsin educator, filed the brief yesterday in Dane County Circuit Court in response to a union legal challenge by the Public Employees Local 61 union and Madison Teachers, Inc., a local affiliate of the National Education Association (NEA) union. In their brief, the workers ask the judge to uphold the legislation as constitutional and deny the unions' request to suspend the law. The workers’ arguments rely on the Foundation-won Supreme Court precedent Davenport v. WEA, in which the Court unanimously held that union bosses enjoy an "extraordinary power" to force workers to pay union dues or fees as a condition of employment, but have no constitutional right to use government resources to deduct union dues or fees from workers' paychecks.
Meanwhile, three additional Wisconsin civil servants – Kristi Lacroix, Nathan Berish, and Ricardo Cruz – continue to defend Walker's reforms from a federal court challenge to the recently-enacted legislation. Two other public servants – Christopher King and Carie Kendrick – have also filed an amicus brief opposing a third union legal challenge to the legislation in another federal court.
It would seem that judges signing the Scott Walker Recall petition violated their code of ethics.
Published reports indicate that 29 Wisconsin circuit court judges appear to have violated the Wisconsin Code of Judicial Conduct by improperly engaging in partisan political activity. Pursuant to Wis. Stat. Sections 757.81 to 757.99 (2011), Landmark Legal Foundation respectfully requests that the Wisconsin Judicial Commission conduct an immediate investigation into this important and timely matter and take all appropriate disciplinary action, including reprimand, censure, suspension, and removal.
Wisconsin always struck me as a state of extremes. Many there seem either far right or far left. Walker came on too strong, too fast and that's why he is having a lot more trouble reforming than say Indiana or Ohio. I don't think state employees should have the right to strike as federal employees don't. However, I don't have a problem with teacher's union having some say in things like cirriculum because I've seen too many baffoons as school administrators. I think its the latter who have scewed up education more than the teachers since they are the clowns supporting things like mainstreaming and watered down student standards while their salaries have skyrocketed (talk about pay for nonperformance). When I've travelled to Wisconsin, two things stuck out; keep left except to pass and lots of homemade trailers being pulled around.
We lived in Wisconsin for a few months back in the early 80s, and now we're in the UP, which would be a lot better off if it was part of WI instead of MI. Our experience with driving down to WI, which we do every couple of months or so, is that they support their smaller communities better and do more economic development. They don't have the Detroit burden and I suppose that helps a bit too.
Seems like the unions are as strong there (or were) as they are here. Maybe stronger, in spite of fewer UAW jobs.
"Did you do an internship under Rumpole of the Bailey?...
1981-83 was the rebuilding and lowering of Carter Inflation that caused the depression. When the oil price went down everything else boomed, especially car sales. I would imagine the turn down in Detroit was due to the Japanese building better cars for less money during the time frame. So it was bust for me in the oil patch and gangbusters through most of the 1980s for everyone else."
Certainly the Japanese invasion was growing...our first Prelude was in 1985, and it was built far better than anything I have ever seen (to this day) from Big 3...the dash controls were PERFECT ergonomically, like somebody actually thought about what a driver might like to see and use (this is from my perspective, but the car was not designed for me, obviously, but it sure seemd like it was)...doors closed like a vault, whereas my Big 3 cars sounded like cans rattling inside (and these UAW rah-rah folks still have no conception about the quality gap back then...that is why I have little to no respect for UAW mindless idiots...I asked one client to walk over to my 85 Prelude so I could show him why I was impressed, and he looked away like a child afraid to go into a dark closet where the monsters are hiding...this was an adult in his 40s, and he was AFRAID to even look at it, forget about sitting in it...they were making UAW junk, paid 10X what they were worth to make the junk, and could not look at a competing product...yes, UAW people are worse than idiots, they were (are) infantile...if they had ANY pride in their work (oops, I said UAW, so forget pride) they would check out the competition and tell ME why their product was better...no chance of that, ever...
IMO, the Honda/Toy invasion was growing by 1985...and the cars were good, not the junk they made in the 70s...they, like Hyundai today, learned quickly from their mistakes, whereas UAW people are too stupid to realize they made mistakes, but they sure know how to strike...
I suppose it was the perfect storm...Japanese good quality, coupled with low gas prices, and they just took off on a 20-plus year upward swing...
Back then (maybe not so much today) it was the two extremes...Cars sold well when gas was cheap and the oil patch was broke...when gas went up, the oil patch made fortunes, and carmaking gets hit...like a see-saw...
We know some people who live in WI. Better look at their taxes before you decide to move there - ouch! If commodity prices continue rising and they reopen mining in the UP, then you better watch out. MI will go from not knowing you exist to rape and exploitation. Funny thing about those militant union workers in WI, they tend to be strongly right wing even though the tea party wants to destroy them. It just seems to be a state of contradictions to me, but some good eating as long as you can live with the left lane bandits messing up traffic and the drunk drivers.
It always strikes me how UAW workers always wear their UAW clothing as if the union is paying their salary. Its like they have no pride in their company and they think it "owes them" a living. D3 customers may wear a D3 hat or t-shirt, but not the UAW workers who make a living from them. So why would the UAW care if the customer has a problem...
The UP has pretty much been exploited since day one, and all the resource dollars went back east or south or somewhere. Sure didn't leave much in the way of royalties for the locals, just wages for a while until the mining or logging companies moved on.
I don't know about UAW representation around here, but it is different living in a mostly pro-union area after a decade in Idaho, a right to work state (Alaska didn't count, there's so much money awash up there no one really cares if the union workers rake it in. And if taxes drove my decision about where to live, I'd still be in AK. ).
Actually Unions in Alaska took a huge hit in 1990. That was the end of the agreement to hire Union contractors. That deal was made with BP and the affiliated Unions when the pipeline construction got going. The big companies all shut down their Union operations and came back with a new name and Non Union. 100s of Teamsters cashed in their pensions and came back to work Non Union for those big companies. Same management same drivers and operators, running the same equipment. During most of the 1990s we were about the only Union people left on the slope. The Unions in Alaska have never completely recovered from that. The Teamsters still have Alascom, some mining and most of the trucking business. Nothing like the 1970s and 80s.
At one time the Teamsters had the Anchorage Cops. They opted out. It was a strange agreement. I really don't know what Unions the public employees have. My wife was in the Teacher's Union in Anchorage. She hated it because many old teachers did not give a rip about the students. And they were protected by tenure to the max.
Maybe he was one of the lousy workers???...all I can tell you is that Detroit was booming by the mid-80s, and lower priced gasoline certainly helped...
My father saved GM over $3 million dollars in suggestions over his working career at GM. It goes to show you how little you know about seniority in union plants. My father would not of been laid off if he wouldn't of been low seniority but the Reagan years had many ups and downs. Yes, there were some years GM, sold a lot of automobiles and the next year due to a recession not as many.
Exactly!!!! My father was laid off 3 times and had to work at a unionized bakery (food industry) until he was recalled. He worked there for like 6 months in the early 80's. Then he was laid off again in the mid 80's and again in the late 80's. By the late 80's he had quite a bit of seniority but they got to him. Oh well he made it through the good and tough times. My mom had a good job when he was laid off in the mid 80's to help our family then her job was outsourced to Malaysia or Indonesia (forget which) thanks to Reagan's tax incentive bill to off shore.
That is not true! My father wore plenty of UAW-GM and then later UAW-Delphi shirts and my whole family bought GM cars and encouraged family and friends to do the same, smh!
The ultimate school administration buffoon of all time has to be Philly's own Arlene Ackerman. Just take a look at this woman!
She was so incompetent and corrupt, the Philadelphia School District paid her over $900K just to go away. Still, she had the chutzpah to ask for unemployment compensation for which she was rightfully denied. In a just world, this woman should've been fired for just cause, walked away with nothing, and been thankful she wasn't prosecuted. As usual, the kids and the schools still suffer.
"It goes to show you how little you know about seniority in union plants."
I may not know much about seniority in union plants, but I know quite well the mentality, or lack of it, of UAW workers, and it sucked in the 80s and only got worse as the years progressed...
I am amazed at workers who wear a union cap instead of a GM or Ford cap...but when I know their collective IQ is still well below average human intelligence, how can ANYONE be surprised???
They don't care about the product, they don't care about the customer, they care about their benefits, period...and not ONE of them is smart enought to realize that their pay and benefits come from those customers that they care nothing about...
I lived surrounded by them for 10 years...I did not sleep in a UAW home, but I listened to them talk and they cared not one whit for the person who bought the car...that is why they put empty beer cans into chassis compartments that could never be found and would rattle forever...
The idiots, and that is what they are, animal-level-intelligence idiots, thought they were getting back at "the man" by sabotaging the product, when they were destroying future sales and knowledge of the sabotage was known by the buyers circle of friends...
Any semi-intelligent dog would know not to "trash their own backyard" but these UAW members weren't even smart enough to know that...how an idiot can EVER be proud to be a UAW member when they mjade and sabotaged that kind of junk is beyond me, they should be ashamed of themselves, but you need intelligence and introspection to be ashamed, and they are simply not smart enough to know that...that is the UAW in a nutshell...
The sad part is people like Ackerman never go away. They just move on to another, unsuspecting school district, probably with a big, fat raise. Sort of like the CEO of a company under whose helm the company tanked.
Any semi-intelligent dog would know not to "trash their own backyard" but these UAW members weren't even smart enough to know that.
Very similar to people in Greece or France or Watts or Detroit rioting and destroying their own cities and neighborhoods. I never could understand that mentality.
Geeze, if that's true, I guess they had a special crew to assemble my 1980s GM cars. I guess it didn't matter I was just a young twenty-something at the time. I guess the shop steward came by and said, "By God, whatever you do, don't do anything to upset this one young guy in Philadelphia!"
berri: what I really wanted to say was "s**t in their own Wheatie bowl"
lemko: just like a blind pig can accidentally find an acorn in a mud puddle, even incompetents in the UAW can accidentally make a decent car...some plants had workers who really were better than others...and you bought those cars...I stand by my earlier comments...just because you bought well-made creampuffs does not mean that the general quality and workmanship was good...the (meteoric) rise of the imports, IMO, proves that...Americans were not forced to buy Hondas and Toyotas, they left the Big 3 VERY voluntarily for what they had to believe was a better car...it was not too long ago, just a few years, that the Big 3 and the imports each had 50% of the US market...since they started from a virtual zero, to take away half of the US market was a feat, and those buyers simply did not accept your definition of a good car, otherwise they never would have left...
That is the missing ingredient, lemko, in your analysis...a great many Americans never bought cars as good as yours, from the same UAW that made your cars...your glowing opinions did not sway millions of buyers who have (probably) deserted the Big 3 forever...
I am happy that you were happy...but you are a lone voice in the wilderness, because the market has proven you wrong, in the sense that the market was highly dissatisfied with the UAW products coming off the line...too many cars were, simply, boat anchor junk, and you waving your "happy flag" changed nobody's opinion...and when that many people (multi millions) change over and buy imports, aside from you being happy with your purchases, many others had experiences far different than yours...just like someone CAN win the lottery, but most don't, you made some great purchases...but millions didn't, and those millions of folks have more control over the market than you do, and there apparently were not enough of you with great experiences to keep the Big 3 in business, considering that 2 almost failed, and one other wasn't far behind...
Geeze, if that's true, I guess they had a special crew to assemble my 1980s GM cars.
Correct me if I am wrong. Don't you usually buy the higher end models of Buick and Cadillac? I would expect UAW workers and the dealers to be more careful with those models.
I do think there is a lot of exaggeration on the incompetence of UAW workers. I am sure a large percentage did/do take pride in their work. However some of the recent incidents show there are still a lot of rotten eggs in the UAW ranks. I consider it an opportunity for the UAW to clean up their image. Are they willing to do that. We know they would already be on strike if not for the bankruptcy and government bailout agreements. If they don't get tough on their own ranks they will lose more jobs to Mexico and beyond.
I have bought high-end Buicks and Cadillacs, but back in the day, my first new car was a black 1987 Chevrolet Caprice Classic. That car was darn-near bulletproof and it was just a Chevy. My Grandpop had both a 1980 Impala and a 1989 Caprice Classic Brougham and both of those cars were excellent.
I'm skimming this at breakfast time and the slightly masked profanity isn't helping my digestion. Let's keep it suitable for all comers please including those with dainty digestions (and I know that begs the question why someone with a delicate constitution would be reading a UAW topic, but it's also against our shop rules...). Thanks.
Well being such an expert of knowing how all these cars rolled off the assembly line by a bunch of ignorant monkey's I assumed you would know how seniority worked also since you are such a expert on what went on inside these automobile plants....WOW!!! :confuse: I hope you go buy a foreign car next time and it gives you problems!!!
Does that mean we're all members of the union? Some would have us think that union members can't be fired--so we're all safe?
In this area there were quite a few union members who were let go in auto-related plants through the years. I don't recall them being unfireable. I especially remember the ones selliing drugs in one plant. And there's the guy in another plant who was operating a business on the side selling Delco parts that he stole from the plant.
But then these were IUE, that's the union the UAW and Obama sold out that built the trucks at Moraine plant in Dayton, Oh. So maybe they were too honest for the UAW's morals?
It would be interesting to see what happened to those guys who were videotaped drinking and getting high in the parking lot on their lunch break a couple of years ago. They are probably still in the appeal process.
gagrice: "I do think there is a lot of exaggeration on the incompetence of UAW workers. I am sure a large percentage did/do take pride in their work. However some of the recent incidents show there are still a lot of rotten eggs in the UAW ranks."
Yes, gagrice, I am sure there are decent UAW workers who want to make the best product...but how many bad ones do you need to sabotage the car in its early prodcution stages where the vehicle will never run right no matter what you do???...and I was "privileged" to know some bad ones...
rocky: "Well being such an expert of knowing how all these cars rolled off the assembly line by a bunch of ignorant monkey's I assumed you would know how seniority worked..."...being able to judge the poor quality of UAW workmaship is totally independent of knowing how seniority worked...what you seem to be incapable of admitting is that millions, MANY millions of American buyers, who never even heard of the UAW, could tell the junk your family made, and they deserted the Big 3 like a hot potato and WILLINGLY bought the imports and stayed happy with them...better gas mileage, better build quality (doors that shut like vaults, not like UAW "baby rattles") and just a better driving experience...that is why Detroit has to shut plants while imports continue to build plants...and there is your incontrovertible proof...we know that most car buyers are not as "car savvy" as we are here, but they bought the imports in DROVES, without fanfare, just deserting the crap quality of your family's UAW one car at a time, until they amounted to millions of buyers a year...
There is the undisputed proof...that folks who know little about cars thought that the cars they had purchased since the beginning, Big 3 cars, were no longer worth buying...they bought the competetion and were FLOORED at the quality of the car, and that fact that it just ran so well...those are buyers the UAW may never see again...the UAW didn;t lose them by making Big 3 cars so good, they lost them because they made junk...your neighbors made that junk and everyone you knew made that junk...and once there was an alternative, Americans went for it like a hungry wolf running after a deer...you have lost them forever and you simply cannot admit that your cars were substandard for more years than you are able to comprehend...you keep telling yourself, blindly, that you made the best cars in the world while all the buyers were walking across the street to Honda and Toyota...and you want me to think UAW people have intelligence???...please, now you insult me... :shades:
But you've got to throw in the D3 engineers and purchasing departments during that time period as well. They designed and bought cheap, mediocre quality parts compared to Japan back then. Sloppy assembly only added to the problems. However, UAW work rules contributed to encouraging these actions in order to offset resulting elevated labor costs and overhead. There is plenty of blame to spread around. If the labor laws in this country were more balanced between the parties maybe this ugly experience wouldn't have happened in the first place.
"But you've got to throw in the D3 engineers and purchasing departments during that time period as well. They designed and bought cheap, mediocre quality parts compared to Japan back then."
Yes, the designers and engineers didn't help much, but hoods that don't fit and doors that are cockeyed, and rattles in doors from extra parts, and beercans in the chassis are not a design problem, they fall squarely on the assembly workers...
What is your excuse for Toyota and Honda leading the pack in recalls? We have already established Toyota, did service campaigns to hide recalls to give the perception of flawless driving. If these American cars are so crappy why did you support them with your fruits of your labor? Please do us a favor and by a import next time.....You can join the import crowd of writing favorable reviews for CR despite your car being in and out of the shop like all the other owners!!!! SMH! Total hypocrisy at it's finest! ^
What is your excuse for Toyota and Honda leading the pack in recalls? We have already established Toyota, did service campaigns to hide recalls to give the perception of flawless driving.
Clearly Toyota got a case of GM disease, and they were rightfully spanked for that. How much do you wanna bet that they won't take 20-30 years to clean themselves up?
Quote from tlong: "Clearly Toyota got a case of GM disease, and they were rightfully spanked for that. How much do you wanna bet that they won't take 20-30 years to clean themselves up?"
That sums up my comments...the japanese cars were not perfect, but for many years they put our cars to shame...rocky, you cannot understand that no matter how many times you hear it, but it is true...they were finely tuned machines for many years while we had boat anchors...
You are incapable of seeing this just like that UAW guy who was unable to look at my Prelude...imagine a child being afraid of looking under the bed, that is what this guy was, just incapable of looking and seeing what his competetion was, and could not observe the quality in the vehicle...you, too, are incapable of introspection thinking that because your family made cars, they were good, but millions of car buyers switched, and it wasn;t because they didn;t like GM's colors, it was because UAW made junk...except for lemko's cars, of course...
If there were more lemkos, with great creampuff cars, the Japanese would have withered and died...but they grew and they offered something that American car MAKERS forgot, and something that American car BUYERS were unaccustomed to...QUALITY...
That is the way it is...the UAW and their poor workmanship have probably alienated MILLIONS of buyers who will NEVER look at a Big 3 product again...after driving cars with squeaks and rattles for years, you would be amazed at how a buyer can easily get addicted to a Japanese car when the ride is silent and smooth...
I think there is another factor besides quality that turned buyers from D3. There was rapid inflation in the latter half of the 70's and into the early 80's thanks to a combination of Nixonomics and Carter and Volcker actions. D3 dominated the industry back then, and since GM had about half the market they basically controlled pricing in the automobile oligopoly (or maybe more realistically a duopoly since Chrysler was shrinking and hurting). D3 vehicles soared in price, even beyond the inflation rate. They blamed environmental and safety factors, but come on catalytic converters and better safety engineering weren't "that" expensive. What this accomplished was two-fold: 1) UAW got even more militant and demanding and 2) buyers got to the point were they were more willing to try something Japanese. So GM multiyear labor contract costs were growing which helped lower cost competion get a foot in the door.
Yes, the designers and engineers didn't help much, but hoods that don't fit and doors that are cockeyed, and rattles in doors from extra parts, and beercans in the chassis are not a design problem, they fall squarely on the assembly workers...
That pretty much describes my wife's Taurus, though I haven't found any beer cans anywhere;)
We drove it to St. Louis and back this weekend and I was treated to a constant buzz located somewhere around the B pillar and an occasional squeak in the dash. It's only a year old with 22k miles on it. But it's reliable, so I guess that should be good enough.
We drove the Taurus because my Expedition decided it didn't want oil in the rear differential, so it was getting resealed. Chalk up one more repair prior to 100k miles, thankfully I caught it in time, or my $120 repair would have had an extra digit. With the repairs I had on my domestics, $120 seemed like it was free;)
I don't know where the problem lies, but every time I'm in my bother's '10 Fusion Sport, I'm impressed. No squeaks or rattles, fit-n-finish etc. rivals the 09 Accord our dad has. Yes it's built on different platform than the Taurus, but why is the sample built in Mexico far superior to the one built in Chicago in terms of build quality?
Well I will not apologize for GM's management! I hope Roger Smith and the like are burning in the same flames as Pol Pot, Hitler, Stalin, etc....
What a lot of import fan boys fail to mention is the Japanese, always had a price advantage due to currency manipulation that ranged from $2,000-$13,000 per unit. Even a guy without a cookie cutter MBA can comprehend simple economics. So I would think a brilliant ambulance chaser like yourself would easily understand it. It is quite laughable that lemko was the only individual that had good luck with domestic "junk" as you call it?!?!? Funny my relatives including my parents must of been damn lucky also since we never had problems with our automobiles either, smh! :confuse:
When a company is undercutting there competition thanks to currency manipulation they can take that profit and put it back into the cars. Funny what happened to all that 1980's Japanese iron? Why do I not see any 80's Japanese cars on the roads? Did some UFO's come down and gather them all up? :confuse: Maybe LEMKO can explain to you what happened to the 1980's Japanese cars after a few Midwest winters?
So I would think a brilliant ambulance chaser like yourself would easily understand it. It is quite laughable that lemko was the only individual that had good luck with domestic "junk" as you call it?!?!? Funny my relatives including my parents must of been damn lucky also since we never had problems with our automobiles either, smh! :confuse:
My experience has been very mixed. I still prefer owning domestics, but man have I had some bad ones and they weren't 20 years ago (I had some bad ones back then too).
On a positive note, My brother's Fusion is the first domestic (branded anyway) that he has owned and he's happy with it.
" Funny my relatives including my parents must of been damn lucky also since we never had problems with our automobiles either"
Maybe I just see this differently...all the folks like you and lemko who had good cars were just not enough...I see the fact that millions of buyers moved over to imports, and they are probably not coming back to D3 cars...when you had the entire market to yourself (D3) and lost THAT much over a few decades (imports had almost 50% market share at one point, IIRC), one has to assume that those buyers see something in imports that you obviously miss, or are incapable of seeing...one does not lose MILLIONS of car sales because the cars are good...
One other possibility...I may have seen a different side of the UAW worker than you did...when they came to my office, laughing at how they hid empty beer cans in the chassis, I saw what I considered outright sabotage, and if I saw a worker doing that, others did, too...I doubt I saw the ONLY worker screwing up the product...
You, OTOH, saw the UAW rah-rah meetings, and family, where they only talked about how they put their best into the product, and they would never admit out loud the crap they were doing to ruin the company and the product...so, while all you see is "Quality is #1", I saw the downside of the ignorant union worker thqat maybe you never realized existed...but I can assure you they existed...
So you see a worker making a living making a product...I see an ignorant illiterate (you would be amazed how many of them cannot read or write) idiot screwing up the product and he isn't msart enough to realize that when he screws up the product he destroys future sales and sends his customers over to the competetion that did not put beer cans in chassis compartments...amazing to me how stupid they were to think that ruining the product was getting back at "the man" but that it was customers like me who actually paid his paycheck, and if we don't buy his cars he has no job...but, considering that intelligence was not a requirement to be hired, it is/was no surprise that that sheer idiocy eventually had a boomerang effect...
BTW, Roger Smith is not the evil person you make him out to be...he was ahead of his time...he tried to use robotics to perform much of the repetitive motions and eliminate human labor, saving the company money...he failed, IMO, because the technology was not sufficiently advanced at the time...but, don't we use that technology today???
Why is Smith such a problem for the UAW???...isn't it every company's responsibility to try to reduce costs, and that is what Smith tried to do...
On one extreme, the Ford Fairmont I owned was the crappiest car I've owned, even worse than my '73 Fiat.
My current stable consists of a '92 Nissan Sentra SE-R, a '05 Dakota truck, an '07 Caravan, an '07 Lacrosse, and an '09 Infiniti G37.
The Sentra is on it's last legs. But being 20 years old and with 165,000 mile on it, I've gotten my fun-filled use out of it. Rocker panels are rusting out.
The '05 Dakota is a truck - what can I say! Outside of needing front brakes at 12,000 miles (and needs new ones again at 30,000 miles), needing the head gaskets replaced at 16,000 miles (under warranty, luckily), and with a nagging seat belt chime that I fixed by shorting out the wires to the seat sensor, it' been fine :shades: .
The '07 Caravan, with 112,000 mile on it OTOH, has needed nothing except front and rear brake pads, tires, oil changes, serpentine belt/pulley/tensioner, wiper blades, some bulbs, plugs and plug wires. WE also had very good luck with our earlier Caravan, a '94.
The '07 Lacrosse we bought from my FIL when he decided to give up his license. Only bought it because it was a super deal with only 26,000 miles on it and ~$7K. It's a Detroit boat, what more can I say.
The '09 Infiniti is fast, comfortable, handles well (outside of some vagueness in the steering), and is a 6-spd manual. With only 14,000 miles on it, it's only had oil changes (duh!).
WOW!!! I hope you go buy a foreign car next time and it gives you problems!!!
LOL! You can hope all you want, but it'll never happen, at least not problems to the degree and level Big 3 cars have problems.
The day I get a foreign car that has as many issues and problems as the 1995 Neon did in less than 65,000 miles is the day I go back to the Big 3. I'm not even sure where my Neon was made and assembled, though the windows did have a stamp "hecho en Mexico." It doesn't matter if it was UAW or not. Clearly, from the designers, the engineers, the quality control, the assemblers, and everybody else involved, in order to make a car THAT terrible, they all had to be in on the incompetence. They were all horrible. Calling them ignorant monkey's is an insult to monkeys. I'd call them scum.
I think you will be hoping for that day for a long, LONG, LONG time. Heck, I even bought an Audi in 2006 (which according to some should have given your hope some chance), but it has been reliable over almost 90K miles than the Neon was in 65K.
No, I think the only hope for the UAW/Big 3 is to make a combined effort to write me a check refunding my purchase price for that 1995 Neon. That'll work just the same as me buying foreign junk. I suppose buying a Land Rover or Jaguar would give your hope a good chance!
'18 Porsche Macan Turbo, '16 Audi TTS, Wife's '19 VW Tiguan SEL 4-Motion
Had almost nothing to do with buyers leaving the Big 3 and going to the Japanese made vehicles.
I chose a Big 3 car in 1994 precisely because it was cheaper and less expensive than a Honda Civic (and Chrysler advertised it as a real new car that was their "new" best effort and best foot forward). People didn't go to the Japanese because they were cheaper, they went to them because they were better!
It was the Big 3's choice to make lousy cars and lose customers long term. They'd of been better off making good cars and losing money on every car, because making lousy cars didn't make them any profit for long anyway, and at least by making good cars, a case for a bailout would make more sense.
But given the choice between making terrible cars and getting bailed out, OR making good cars and getting bailed out, I wish they'd of chosen the 2nd option.
'18 Porsche Macan Turbo, '16 Audi TTS, Wife's '19 VW Tiguan SEL 4-Motion
Your "theory" might have some validity up to the early 1980's, but it certainly doesn't address the widespread support for foreign makes now assembled in the US today.
In fact, many of these plants export a large number of their vehicles. I know that BMW exports 60% + of its SC production. And, seems like I remember years ago reading that Honda had become a "net exporter" of vehicles, exporting more than it imported.
The LaCrosse is a boat? Shoot, my very petite 5'1" 99 lb wife doesn't think so. By my standards, it's barely a midsize. A Grand Marquis is a full-size car. We have done extremely well with our 2005 LaCrosse. We've experienced absolutely no unscheduled maintenance issues and it delivers fantastic fuel economy in this age of larcenous gas prices!
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That's just the hypocrisy from that group that is perpetually there.
As for the layoffs, there was lots of excess plant capacity in many lines as the slowdowns in autosales required factories building certain sizes and types of cars be shut down or slowed down. That is probably the layoff trend observed.
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
Wisconsin public school teacher has filed an amicus curiae brief in state court supporting Governor Walker's public sector union reform bill. The recently-enacted legislation ensures that most Wisconsin public employees do not have to join or pay dues to a union as a condition of employment and bans automatic union dues deductions from public employees' paychecks.
Eli Grajkowski, a veteran Wisconsin educator, filed the brief yesterday in Dane County Circuit Court in response to a union legal challenge by the Public Employees Local 61 union and Madison Teachers, Inc., a local affiliate of the National Education Association (NEA) union.
In their brief, the workers ask the judge to uphold the legislation as constitutional and deny the unions' request to suspend the law. The workers’ arguments rely on the Foundation-won Supreme Court precedent Davenport v. WEA, in which the Court unanimously held that union bosses enjoy an "extraordinary power" to force workers to pay union dues or fees as a condition of employment, but have no constitutional right to use government resources to deduct union dues or fees from workers' paychecks.
Meanwhile, three additional Wisconsin civil servants – Kristi Lacroix, Nathan Berish, and Ricardo Cruz – continue to defend Walker's reforms from a federal court challenge to the recently-enacted legislation. Two other public servants – Christopher King and Carie Kendrick – have also filed an amicus brief opposing a third union legal challenge to the legislation in another federal court.
Published reports indicate that 29 Wisconsin circuit court judges appear to have violated the Wisconsin Code of Judicial Conduct by improperly engaging in partisan political activity. Pursuant to Wis. Stat. Sections 757.81 to 757.99 (2011), Landmark Legal Foundation respectfully requests that the Wisconsin Judicial Commission conduct an immediate investigation into this important and timely matter and take all appropriate disciplinary action, including reprimand, censure, suspension, and removal.
http://www.landmarklegal.org/uploads/wisconsin%20recall%20complaint.pdf
Seems like the unions are as strong there (or were) as they are here. Maybe stronger, in spite of fewer UAW jobs.
1981-83 was the rebuilding and lowering of Carter Inflation that caused the depression. When the oil price went down everything else boomed, especially car sales. I would imagine the turn down in Detroit was due to the Japanese building better cars for less money during the time frame. So it was bust for me in the oil patch and gangbusters through most of the 1980s for everyone else."
Certainly the Japanese invasion was growing...our first Prelude was in 1985, and it was built far better than anything I have ever seen (to this day) from Big 3...the dash controls were PERFECT ergonomically, like somebody actually thought about what a driver might like to see and use (this is from my perspective, but the car was not designed for me, obviously, but it sure seemd like it was)...doors closed like a vault, whereas my Big 3 cars sounded like cans rattling inside (and these UAW rah-rah folks still have no conception about the quality gap back then...that is why I have little to no respect for UAW mindless idiots...I asked one client to walk over to my 85 Prelude so I could show him why I was impressed, and he looked away like a child afraid to go into a dark closet where the monsters are hiding...this was an adult in his 40s, and he was AFRAID to even look at it, forget about sitting in it...they were making UAW junk, paid 10X what they were worth to make the junk, and could not look at a competing product...yes, UAW people are worse than idiots, they were (are) infantile...if they had ANY pride in their work (oops, I said UAW, so forget pride) they would check out the competition and tell ME why their product was better...no chance of that, ever...
IMO, the Honda/Toy invasion was growing by 1985...and the cars were good, not the junk they made in the 70s...they, like Hyundai today, learned quickly from their mistakes, whereas UAW people are too stupid to realize they made mistakes, but they sure know how to strike...
I suppose it was the perfect storm...Japanese good quality, coupled with low gas prices, and they just took off on a 20-plus year upward swing...
Back then (maybe not so much today) it was the two extremes...Cars sold well when gas was cheap and the oil patch was broke...when gas went up, the oil patch made fortunes, and carmaking gets hit...like a see-saw...
What a coincidence- I couldn't either:
Good game, regardless...
Mine: 1995 318ti Club Sport-2020 C43-1996 Speed Triple Challenge Cup Replica
Wife's: 2021 Sahara 4xe
Son's: 2018 330i xDrive
I don't know about UAW representation around here, but it is different living in a mostly pro-union area after a decade in Idaho, a right to work state (Alaska didn't count, there's so much money awash up there no one really cares if the union workers rake it in. And if taxes drove my decision about where to live, I'd still be in AK.
My father saved GM over $3 million dollars in suggestions over his working career at GM. It goes to show you how little you know about seniority in union plants. My father would not of been laid off if he wouldn't of been low seniority but the Reagan years had many ups and downs. Yes, there were some years GM, sold a lot of automobiles and the next year due to a recession not as many.
-Rocky
-Rocky
-Rocky
My step dad and aunt do the same
-Rocky
And where do all those baffoon administrators come from? From the ranks of teachers???
She was so incompetent and corrupt, the Philadelphia School District paid her over $900K just to go away. Still, she had the chutzpah to ask for unemployment compensation for which she was rightfully denied. In a just world, this woman should've been fired for just cause, walked away with nothing, and been thankful she wasn't prosecuted. As usual, the kids and the schools still suffer.
I may not know much about seniority in union plants, but I know quite well the mentality, or lack of it, of UAW workers, and it sucked in the 80s and only got worse as the years progressed...
I am amazed at workers who wear a union cap instead of a GM or Ford cap...but when I know their collective IQ is still well below average human intelligence, how can ANYONE be surprised???
They don't care about the product, they don't care about the customer, they care about their benefits, period...and not ONE of them is smart enought to realize that their pay and benefits come from those customers that they care nothing about...
I lived surrounded by them for 10 years...I did not sleep in a UAW home, but I listened to them talk and they cared not one whit for the person who bought the car...that is why they put empty beer cans into chassis compartments that could never be found and would rattle forever...
The idiots, and that is what they are, animal-level-intelligence idiots, thought they were getting back at "the man" by sabotaging the product, when they were destroying future sales and knowledge of the sabotage was known by the buyers circle of friends...
Any semi-intelligent dog would know not to "trash their own backyard" but these UAW members weren't even smart enough to know that...how an idiot can EVER be proud to be a UAW member when they mjade and sabotaged that kind of junk is beyond me, they should be ashamed of themselves, but you need intelligence and introspection to be ashamed, and they are simply not smart enough to know that...that is the UAW in a nutshell...
Very similar to people in Greece or France or Watts or Detroit rioting and destroying their own cities and neighborhoods. I never could understand that mentality.
lemko: just like a blind pig can accidentally find an acorn in a mud puddle, even incompetents in the UAW can accidentally make a decent car...some plants had workers who really were better than others...and you bought those cars...I stand by my earlier comments...just because you bought well-made creampuffs does not mean that the general quality and workmanship was good...the (meteoric) rise of the imports, IMO, proves that...Americans were not forced to buy Hondas and Toyotas, they left the Big 3 VERY voluntarily for what they had to believe was a better car...it was not too long ago, just a few years, that the Big 3 and the imports each had 50% of the US market...since they started from a virtual zero, to take away half of the US market was a feat, and those buyers simply did not accept your definition of a good car, otherwise they never would have left...
That is the missing ingredient, lemko, in your analysis...a great many Americans never bought cars as good as yours, from the same UAW that made your cars...your glowing opinions did not sway millions of buyers who have (probably) deserted the Big 3 forever...
I am happy that you were happy...but you are a lone voice in the wilderness, because the market has proven you wrong, in the sense that the market was highly dissatisfied with the UAW products coming off the line...too many cars were, simply, boat anchor junk, and you waving your "happy flag" changed nobody's opinion...and when that many people (multi millions) change over and buy imports, aside from you being happy with your purchases, many others had experiences far different than yours...just like someone CAN win the lottery, but most don't, you made some great purchases...but millions didn't, and those millions of folks have more control over the market than you do, and there apparently were not enough of you with great experiences to keep the Big 3 in business, considering that 2 almost failed, and one other wasn't far behind...
Correct me if I am wrong. Don't you usually buy the higher end models of Buick and Cadillac? I would expect UAW workers and the dealers to be more careful with those models.
I do think there is a lot of exaggeration on the incompetence of UAW workers. I am sure a large percentage did/do take pride in their work. However some of the recent incidents show there are still a lot of rotten eggs in the UAW ranks. I consider it an opportunity for the UAW to clean up their image. Are they willing to do that. We know they would already be on strike if not for the bankruptcy and government bailout agreements. If they don't get tough on their own ranks they will lose more jobs to Mexico and beyond.
-Rocky
Does that mean we're all members of the union? Some would have us think that union members can't be fired--so we're all safe?
In this area there were quite a few union members who were let go in auto-related plants through the years. I don't recall them being unfireable. I especially remember the ones selliing drugs in one plant. And there's the guy in another plant who was operating a business on the side selling Delco parts that he stole from the plant.
But then these were IUE, that's the union the UAW and Obama sold out that built the trucks at Moraine plant in Dayton, Oh. So maybe they were too honest for the UAW's morals?
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
Was that in Detroit? Chrysler?
I know the folks selling and using drugs in the Moraine Plant were gone. Even the IUE didn't block that. They had video.
EDIT: This is the latest article I find. They were suspended, but nothing further that they were fired.
http://www.thedetroitbureau.com/2011/07/chrysler-workers-suspended-for-pot-smoki- ng-drinking-on-job/
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,
16 defense company workers in Detroit were fired last December for smoking and drinking on the job. (link).
The CAW is supposedly grieving the firing of 4 lunchtime drinkers up at Windsor Chrysler back in February. (windsorstar.com.)
Party on....
Yes, gagrice, I am sure there are decent UAW workers who want to make the best product...but how many bad ones do you need to sabotage the car in its early prodcution stages where the vehicle will never run right no matter what you do???...and I was "privileged" to know some bad ones...
rocky: "Well being such an expert of knowing how all these cars rolled off the assembly line by a bunch of ignorant monkey's I assumed you would know how seniority worked..."...being able to judge the poor quality of UAW workmaship is totally independent of knowing how seniority worked...what you seem to be incapable of admitting is that millions, MANY millions of American buyers, who never even heard of the UAW, could tell the junk your family made, and they deserted the Big 3 like a hot potato and WILLINGLY bought the imports and stayed happy with them...better gas mileage, better build quality (doors that shut like vaults, not like UAW "baby rattles") and just a better driving experience...that is why Detroit has to shut plants while imports continue to build plants...and there is your incontrovertible proof...we know that most car buyers are not as "car savvy" as we are here, but they bought the imports in DROVES, without fanfare, just deserting the crap quality of your family's UAW one car at a time, until they amounted to millions of buyers a year...
There is the undisputed proof...that folks who know little about cars thought that the cars they had purchased since the beginning, Big 3 cars, were no longer worth buying...they bought the competetion and were FLOORED at the quality of the car, and that fact that it just ran so well...those are buyers the UAW may never see again...the UAW didn;t lose them by making Big 3 cars so good, they lost them because they made junk...your neighbors made that junk and everyone you knew made that junk...and once there was an alternative, Americans went for it like a hungry wolf running after a deer...you have lost them forever and you simply cannot admit that your cars were substandard for more years than you are able to comprehend...you keep telling yourself, blindly, that you made the best cars in the world while all the buyers were walking across the street to Honda and Toyota...and you want me to think UAW people have intelligence???...please, now you insult me... :shades:
Yes, the designers and engineers didn't help much, but hoods that don't fit and doors that are cockeyed, and rattles in doors from extra parts, and beercans in the chassis are not a design problem, they fall squarely on the assembly workers...
-Rocky
Clearly Toyota got a case of GM disease, and they were rightfully spanked for that. How much do you wanna bet that they won't take 20-30 years to clean themselves up?
That sums up my comments...the japanese cars were not perfect, but for many years they put our cars to shame...rocky, you cannot understand that no matter how many times you hear it, but it is true...they were finely tuned machines for many years while we had boat anchors...
You are incapable of seeing this just like that UAW guy who was unable to look at my Prelude...imagine a child being afraid of looking under the bed, that is what this guy was, just incapable of looking and seeing what his competetion was, and could not observe the quality in the vehicle...you, too, are incapable of introspection thinking that because your family made cars, they were good, but millions of car buyers switched, and it wasn;t because they didn;t like GM's colors, it was because UAW made junk...except for lemko's cars, of course...
If there were more lemkos, with great creampuff cars, the Japanese would have withered and died...but they grew and they offered something that American car MAKERS forgot, and something that American car BUYERS were unaccustomed to...QUALITY...
That is the way it is...the UAW and their poor workmanship have probably alienated MILLIONS of buyers who will NEVER look at a Big 3 product again...after driving cars with squeaks and rattles for years, you would be amazed at how a buyer can easily get addicted to a Japanese car when the ride is silent and smooth...
That pretty much describes my wife's Taurus, though I haven't found any beer cans anywhere;)
We drove it to St. Louis and back this weekend and I was treated to a constant buzz located somewhere around the B pillar and an occasional squeak in the dash. It's only a year old with 22k miles on it. But it's reliable, so I guess that should be good enough.
We drove the Taurus because my Expedition decided it didn't want oil in the rear differential, so it was getting resealed. Chalk up one more repair prior to 100k miles, thankfully I caught it in time, or my $120 repair would have had an extra digit. With the repairs I had on my domestics, $120 seemed like it was free;)
I don't know where the problem lies, but every time I'm in my bother's '10 Fusion Sport, I'm impressed. No squeaks or rattles, fit-n-finish etc. rivals the 09 Accord our dad has. Yes it's built on different platform than the Taurus, but why is the sample built in Mexico far superior to the one built in Chicago in terms of build quality?
What a lot of import fan boys fail to mention is the Japanese, always had a price advantage due to currency manipulation that ranged from $2,000-$13,000 per unit. Even a guy without a cookie cutter MBA can comprehend simple economics. So I would think a brilliant ambulance chaser like yourself would easily understand it. It is quite laughable that lemko was the only individual that had good luck with domestic "junk" as you call it?!?!? Funny my relatives including my parents must of been damn lucky also since we never had problems with our automobiles either, smh! :confuse:
When a company is undercutting there competition thanks to currency manipulation they can take that profit and put it back into the cars. Funny what happened to all that 1980's Japanese iron? Why do I not see any 80's Japanese cars on the roads? Did some UFO's come down and gather them all up? :confuse: Maybe LEMKO can explain to you what happened to the 1980's Japanese cars after a few Midwest winters?
-Rocky
My experience has been very mixed. I still prefer owning domestics, but man have I had some bad ones and they weren't 20 years ago (I had some bad ones back then too).
On a positive note, My brother's Fusion is the first domestic (branded anyway) that he has owned and he's happy with it.
Maybe I just see this differently...all the folks like you and lemko who had good cars were just not enough...I see the fact that millions of buyers moved over to imports, and they are probably not coming back to D3 cars...when you had the entire market to yourself (D3) and lost THAT much over a few decades (imports had almost 50% market share at one point, IIRC), one has to assume that those buyers see something in imports that you obviously miss, or are incapable of seeing...one does not lose MILLIONS of car sales because the cars are good...
One other possibility...I may have seen a different side of the UAW worker than you did...when they came to my office, laughing at how they hid empty beer cans in the chassis, I saw what I considered outright sabotage, and if I saw a worker doing that, others did, too...I doubt I saw the ONLY worker screwing up the product...
You, OTOH, saw the UAW rah-rah meetings, and family, where they only talked about how they put their best into the product, and they would never admit out loud the crap they were doing to ruin the company and the product...so, while all you see is "Quality is #1", I saw the downside of the ignorant union worker thqat maybe you never realized existed...but I can assure you they existed...
So you see a worker making a living making a product...I see an ignorant illiterate (you would be amazed how many of them cannot read or write) idiot screwing up the product and he isn't msart enough to realize that when he screws up the product he destroys future sales and sends his customers over to the competetion that did not put beer cans in chassis compartments...amazing to me how stupid they were to think that ruining the product was getting back at "the man" but that it was customers like me who actually paid his paycheck, and if we don't buy his cars he has no job...but, considering that intelligence was not a requirement to be hired, it is/was no surprise that that sheer idiocy eventually had a boomerang effect...
BTW, Roger Smith is not the evil person you make him out to be...he was ahead of his time...he tried to use robotics to perform much of the repetitive motions and eliminate human labor, saving the company money...he failed, IMO, because the technology was not sufficiently advanced at the time...but, don't we use that technology today???
Why is Smith such a problem for the UAW???...isn't it every company's responsibility to try to reduce costs, and that is what Smith tried to do...
That's the situation here also.
On one extreme, the Ford Fairmont I owned was the crappiest car I've owned, even worse than my '73 Fiat.
My current stable consists of a '92 Nissan Sentra SE-R, a '05 Dakota truck, an '07 Caravan, an '07 Lacrosse, and an '09 Infiniti G37.
The Sentra is on it's last legs. But being 20 years old and with 165,000 mile on it, I've gotten my fun-filled use out of it. Rocker panels are rusting out.
The '05 Dakota is a truck - what can I say! Outside of needing front brakes at 12,000 miles (and needs new ones again at 30,000 miles), needing the head gaskets replaced at 16,000 miles (under warranty, luckily), and with a nagging seat belt chime that I fixed by shorting out the wires to the seat sensor, it' been fine :shades: .
The '07 Caravan, with 112,000 mile on it OTOH, has needed nothing except front and rear brake pads, tires, oil changes, serpentine belt/pulley/tensioner, wiper blades, some bulbs, plugs and plug wires. WE also had very good luck with our earlier Caravan, a '94.
The '07 Lacrosse we bought from my FIL when he decided to give up his license. Only bought it because it was a super deal with only 26,000 miles on it and ~$7K. It's a Detroit boat, what more can I say.
The '09 Infiniti is fast, comfortable, handles well (outside of some vagueness in the steering), and is a 6-spd manual. With only 14,000 miles on it, it's only had oil changes (duh!).
LOL! You can hope all you want, but it'll never happen, at least not problems to the degree and level Big 3 cars have problems.
The day I get a foreign car that has as many issues and problems as the 1995 Neon did in less than 65,000 miles is the day I go back to the Big 3. I'm not even sure where my Neon was made and assembled, though the windows did have a stamp "hecho en Mexico." It doesn't matter if it was UAW or not. Clearly, from the designers, the engineers, the quality control, the assemblers, and everybody else involved, in order to make a car THAT terrible, they all had to be in on the incompetence. They were all horrible. Calling them ignorant monkey's is an insult to monkeys. I'd call them scum.
I think you will be hoping for that day for a long, LONG, LONG time. Heck, I even bought an Audi in 2006 (which according to some should have given your hope some chance), but it has been reliable over almost 90K miles than the Neon was in 65K.
No, I think the only hope for the UAW/Big 3 is to make a combined effort to write me a check refunding my purchase price for that 1995 Neon. That'll work just the same as me buying foreign junk. I suppose buying a Land Rover or Jaguar would give your hope a good chance!
I chose a Big 3 car in 1994 precisely because it was cheaper and less expensive than a Honda Civic (and Chrysler advertised it as a real new car that was their "new" best effort and best foot forward). People didn't go to the Japanese because they were cheaper, they went to them because they were better!
It was the Big 3's choice to make lousy cars and lose customers long term. They'd of been better off making good cars and losing money on every car, because making lousy cars didn't make them any profit for long anyway, and at least by making good cars, a case for a bailout would make more sense.
But given the choice between making terrible cars and getting bailed out, OR making good cars and getting bailed out, I wish they'd of chosen the 2nd option.
In fact, many of these plants export a large number of their vehicles. I know that BMW exports 60% + of its SC production. And, seems like I remember years ago reading that Honda had become a "net exporter" of vehicles, exporting more than it imported.